You remind of this holy hieromartyr.Priest Dimitry Ovechkin. Photo from the investigative records, 1930.

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Holy hieromartyr Dimitry Ovechkin was a typical village priest who served in the Church of St. Procopius in the village of Kuznechikha, Osinskoe region. He was born in 1877 to a peasant family. Probably he had to make no small effort to receive his education in the Kazan seminary. He was ordained a priest at age 32. Bishop Palladius ordained him in 1909. Father Dimitry began his “way of the cross” in 1922, when he refused to participate in the commission for the confiscation of Church valuables. He was then given a commuted sentence of six months imprisonment, but in 1930 he was given a real term of three years in concentration camp, accused of “organizing a protest against events conducted by the Soviet government”. In the year of the “Great Terror” he again came to the attention of the NKVD. People were found who agreed to testify against him: he supposedly talked about the crop failure and famine enveloping Russia, about the extremely difficult conditions of life when he, a priest, could not get a job (Father Dimitry had a wife and three children to support), and about how the party administration was turning people’s attention away from the economic problems by staging the spectacles of trials according to plan. What of this was true and what was contrived? The main thing is that witnesses were found to testify.

In the application form for the record of 1937, one detail noted by the interrogator draws our attention: “A cross is tattooed on his chest.” Apparently he had experience—baptismal crosses were confiscated in the camps. The protocol fixes the unrelenting tone and tense atmosphere during the interrogation: in connection with other persons under investigation, Father Dimitry does not confirm any conversations on political themes, or the existence of a “counter-revolutionary organization. He has nothing to convey. The interrogator screams in his face, “You’re lying!” But Fr. Dimitry only replies quietly, “I have given truthful testimony and cannot add anything else.” Again, “You’re lying!” The interrogator reads the testimony of other persons under investigation about supposedly “recruited members of the organization.” To every “Do you confess?” Father Dimitry only repeats, “I do not confess to it.”

Seven people were arraigned in this case. Two of them, Father Dimitry Ovechkin and Father Nicholai Uvitsky, were sentenced on November 4, 1937 to “execution by shooting.” On November 14 the troika executed the sentence. But Father Dimitry’s relatives had no reliable information about him for many long years. Even after Stalin’s death in 1957, when his widow made an inquiry she received a flagrantly false answer according to the existing formula: “Ovechkina, Olga Grigorievna is to be told orally that Ovechkin, Dimitry Kiprianovich was sentenced on November 4, 1937 to ten years of corrective labor camp, and died in his place of imprisonment on December 5, 1941 from pellagra. His death should be registered in the Osinskoe registration office.”http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/59084.htm

This is my favorite cigar. At least on my dime. If someone else is paying, I'll have the La Aurora.

I am pretending not to smoke. And I tire of my pipes. For some reasons I've been craving cigars with coffee (I've had maybe a total of 3 dozen of the former in my entire life and I am not a big coffe drinker).

How much is the above going to set me back? And what other inexpensive suggestions do you have?

The guy at the shop will talk my ear off about this as well, I like to cast wide nets.

This is my favorite cigar. At least on my dime. If someone else is paying, I'll have the La Aurora.

I am pretending not to smoke. And I tire of my pipes. For some reasons I've been craving cigars with coffee (I've had maybe a total of 3 dozen of the former in my entire life and I am not a big coffe drinker).

How much is the above going to set me back? And what other inexpensive suggestions do you have?

The guy at the shop will talk my ear off about this as well, I like to cast wide nets.

Thanks.

Punch cigars are not terribly expensive for being hand rolled. It all depends on the tobacco tax in your area. The base price for the average punch is around $4.00. The Gran Cru and Grand Puro Punches are a little higher. I don't know of any Punch that retails for more than $8.00 before tax - at least not that I can remember buying.

The machine rolled Punch London Club and Elite cigars go for around $2.00 before taxes. Same basic taste as the hand rolled, but short filler. They are made from the scraps of the hand rolled cigars. Hand rolling leaves a lot of "waste" that really is pretty good tobacco. In fact, the first cigarettes were made from scap tobacco from cigars. There would probably fewer health problems if they still were.

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I would be happy to agree with you, but then both of us would be wrong.

Well, as a consecrated member, I follow along with other chanters, readers, subdeacons, and clergy on keeping strictly in taking off our shoes when approaching the area just outside the altar (other churches are stricter, askin you to take off your shoes outside the church).

This is a wedding. I think at this point the cleric is a bit lenient for the bride and groom not taking off their shoes and not wanting to mess up the women's hairs on this special ocassion.

Logged

Vain existence can never exist, for "unless the LORD builds the house, the builders labor in vain." (Psalm 127)

If the faith is unchanged and rock solid, then the gates of Hades never prevailed in the end.

I would limit meats to mostly chicken and fish, because they have the least fat. Beef has te highest fat content (which is why I loved I so much I guess). Little to no carbs, but if carbs, little fruits and whole wheat is fine. On extremely busy days, I have beef jerky and protein shakes. On fasting days, I stick with fish and boca burgers, and beans beans beans.

It requires a lot of calorie counting but also protein counting as well. A lot of people make the mistake that they only count calories but take very little protein, and they don't get valuable nutrients and end up losing muscle mass. Working out of course is also important as well as vitamin supplements. All of this was done under the guidance of my nutritionist.

Logged

Vain existence can never exist, for "unless the LORD builds the house, the builders labor in vain." (Psalm 127)

If the faith is unchanged and rock solid, then the gates of Hades never prevailed in the end.

Really great pictures of our Egyptian brothers, I mean Pharaoh714 and Mina. Both of you look very Egyptian (in positive sense of course ) It's nice to see pictures present you in your churches. Well, as somebody has mentioned in this thread, it would be nice to present pictures from our parishes. Well, I know I don't do it, but it's simply becaue of the fact that I usually manage to hide when the pictures are being taken for our parish website

I wonder where the last photo of Pharaoh714 has been taken? As for Mina's pictures, it's easy to notice that the ceremony was very joyous

NightOwl: very nice picture too! And congratulations I find this American (well, I know it's not practiced only in USA) really great. For sure it's an unforgetabble moment.

KostaC: I think the first pictures was taken in the church of which photos I put yesterday in the thread "werid iconostaes" So that's mean you are a byzantine chanter?

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Pray for persecuted Christians, especially in Serbian Kosovo and Raška, Egypt and Syria

KostaC: I think the first pictures was taken in the church of which photos I put yesterday in the thread "werid iconostaes" So that's mean you are a byzantine chanter?

I actually prefer it to the neo-Baroque architecture that one sees a lot in Istanbul, truth be told. Not quite. I have a long way to go. I've been at it for almost three years now, but all I do is hold isson and chant whatever hymns I've memorised, like Agnie Parthene and Psalm 136. This summer, however, is the summer when I plan to learn how to read Byzantine notation. I plan on becoming literate in Byzantine notation or die trying.